


Kriffing Skates

by imgoingtocrash



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff, Ice Skating, Jyn's not a very good student, Rebelcaptain Secret Santa, Snark, but Cassian is a patient teacher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 05:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingtocrash/pseuds/imgoingtocrash
Summary: “Passing through the tree-line has revealed an enclosed, undisturbed, frozen-over water source. Cassian found this area on a perimeter check a few weeks ago, and has since been gathering the resources for their short expedition to return.“It’s…” Jyn trails off, her mouth slightly open, brow furrowed in confusion. He ignores her momentarily, crouching down with the black bag to pull out the crafted blade attachments for their boots. He holds them up for her inspection. “I don’t…blades?”“Skates,” he corrects.”Cassian teaches Jyn how to ice skate on what amounts to a nice day on Hoth. It goes pretty well, but bringing her to the lake is about more than just the skating itself.





	Kriffing Skates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grexigone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grexigone/gifts).



> I participated in my first fandom secret santa this year with the Rebelcaptain Secret Santa, and got grexigone’s lovely prompt of “Cassian teaches Jyn skating on a frozen lake”.
> 
> Truth be told, I haven’t gone ice skating in…a very long time. I’m uncoordinated so it’s hardly my thing. However, with the help of Youtube and some creative writing, I’ve hopefully done the concept of ice skating justice as it was needed in this work. It certainly got me into the winter season.
> 
> Enjoy, and I hope everyone’s had a happy holidays!

Growing up on an ice planet like Fest means that the move to Hoth almost feels like coming home again.

Cassian thinks it shouldn’t. He didn’t live on Fest very long after his youth. His few fond memories are about the people: his mother and his father—their smiles, their laughs, their few grey hairs that never had a chance to encapsulate what other hairs were dark. He grew up in the cold and snow, yes, but despite it being the planet he came from he’s rarely warranted himself time to think about it since.

He just seems to… _fit_ in a way the other residents of Echo Base don’t. His puffy blue jacket and multiple layers no longer seem as excessive an outerwear choice as they were in the stifling heat of Yavin. His dark hair contrasts against the white flakes of snow that rain down on occasion. He barely even notices the cold when he’s absorbed in his work while other soldiers’ complaints travel through the halls at light speed on any given day.

He’s human, of course he _notices_ the cold—particularly because the quarters have fairly poor insulation and his bunk is covered in as many blankets as he could bargain for—it just doesn’t bother him the way it seems to other people.

The way it so clearly is bothering Jyn at this very second.

“Cassian, if you don’t tell me where we’re going I’m going to take my scarf and strangle you with it,” she says, the words muffled through where her mouth and nose are buried in the scarf currently wrapped around her neck.

He chuckles softly in response, the warm air from his outward breath wrapping around his face as the wind whips against them.

It’s actually a mild day for Hoth’s standards. The sun is peeking through the seemingly endless wall of grey clouds in little streaks. There’s currently no snow falling from the sky. The temperature is still its usual biting cold, but the wind isn’t too harsh as they walk further from the base’s shelter. He even saw a few groups of people throwing snowballs at each other as they left.

Fair of him to say, then, “You’re being dramatic.”

Jyn stops, crossing her arms and turning to face him. “ _I’m_ being dramatic?” She huffs. “You’re the one that dragged me away from a cup of hot caf during my break time between assignments without telling me a damn thing about why!”

“This was supposed to be a nice surprise, you know. You make it sound like I’m torturing you.”

“How do I know you’re not?” He gives her a blank, unamused stare in reply. “I know nothing about what you even do in Intelligence half the time. How do I know this isn’t some secret torture technique Draven taught you?”

He continues walking, waiting a beat until she catches up to repeat himself. “Dramatic.” She punches his shoulder.

“You bring me out into the middle of nowhere on a frozen ice planet with a mysterious black bag of clinking, heavy metal. What am I supposed to think?”

Cassian simply shakes his head back and forth. He wishes she would stop being so difficult about this, but then again, she wouldn’t be Jyn if she wasn’t. He checks the datapad between his hands, held just out of Jyn’s view. _Not far now._

“You owe me so much for this,” Jyn continues, looking down and watching her steps as they trek through the deep layers of snow, not looking ahead as they pass through a small clearing of trees, their branches frozen. “It’s not my fault you’re some kind of snow-bred hybrid species that doesn’t mind the cold. Some of us do. Very much. Which you know about me.”

“Jyn, stop,” Cassian insists, lightly placing his arm in front of her chest. “Look.” When he finally catches her gaze, he points to the area in front of them.

Passing through the tree-line has revealed an enclosed, undisturbed, frozen-over water source. Cassian found this area on a perimeter check a few weeks ago, and has since been gathering the resources for their short expedition to return.

“It’s…” Jyn trails off, her mouth slightly open, brow furrowed in confusion. He ignores her momentarily, crouching down with the black bag to pull out the crafted blade attachments for their boots. He holds them up for her inspection. “I don’t…blades?”

“Skates,” he corrects. “Do you know what ice skating is?”

Jyn shakes her head back and forth, accepting the skate from between his hands and turning it around and around. “I haven’t really been around snow like this before. It was cold near the beaches on Lah’mu, but the snow just melted and the water never really froze over.”

He nods. He suspected as much. “It’s sort of like hover-boots. Just with blades.”

“So nothing like hover-boots.”

“The _point_ ,” he stresses. “Is that they let you stand and move on the ice the same way.”

“Isn’t that more dangerous?” she asks, handing him back the blade. “Seems like a good way to get yourself hurt.”

“Scared?” he teases.

Her cheeks blush the lightest red and she crosses her arms at him again. “No.”

“Good. Take off your boots.”

“What?”

“I got these blades made specifically to be attached to your boots. C’mon. Off.”

“Cassian, are you sure I can even do this? I mean, blades are for attacking, not sliding around on ice!” She’s hesitant, he realizes. It’s rare for her. Hard to notice behind some of her layers of bravado and strength, especially at something like this. It’s something they have in common. These moments of quiet between the battles are sometimes what make them the most uncomfortable. Truly uncharted territory.

He grabs her arms, bracketing her close, reassuring. “Jyn. Children grow up learning how to do this. We’re taking it slow. You’ll be fine. I’ve got you.”

“Yeah.” She nods. “I know.”

With that she unceremoniously flops onto the ground, allowing him to clip the skates to her boots before pulling her up. He then repeats the motion for himself, standing and acclimating himself once more to the feeling of walking on blades rather than flat ground. 

Jyn, not used to the difference, takes one step forward and almost falls, grabbing onto his arm for support. “Kriffing skates,” she grumbles, still holding onto him as she straightens herself out.

“So,” he starts, guiding them—still connected by her iron grip on his arm—onto the iced over lake. “To move, you’re going to be less straight.” He bends his knees, then moves his weight to his heels. “See?”

She nods, then mimics his posture the best she can while still holding onto him. He only has to correct her position a little, pushing her shoulders and chest back. 

He curls his fingers over Jyn’s, gently peeling them back one by one until she’s standing all by herself, their only connection where her grip has now solidly readjusted to squeezing his hand off. He smiles, amused at the pout she’s giving him. “You have to let go of me some time, you know.”

“Never.” She smirks, more fully wrapping her upper body around his arm and somehow not knocking either of them over. “See, look, I’m on the skates! Standing. We can just stay like this and call it done. Much warmer.” She looks up at him, smile sharp like a loth-cat’s. If it were anyone else he’d call it pleasant and not clearly vying for an excuse. She huffs at his blank response, letting go of him. “Fine. The faster the better, then. On with it.”

He shakes his head, but complies with her request. He adjusts his right foot at an angle. “You just push off of this foot, then straighten out and glide.” He does it then, simply pushing off and gliding forward, only moving more to turn around and return to her side.

“Show off,” she grumbles.

“I’m teaching you! I have to show off.”

“I think you’re just trying to impress me.” She shakes her head, pulling him close by the jacket, still not moving from where he first left her standing. Her hand snakes up behind his neck, pulling him down to her. “I think this is all a very elaborate scheme to get me to drag you back to our quarters in a lust-filled haze,” she whispers, the warm fog of her breath filling his mouth when he breathes in.

She leans up, intent clear, but he simply quirks his lip, breaks hold, and skates away.

“No, if wanted to impress you, I would do this.” He moves himself forward, gaining speed before executing a simple jump and twist in the air, landing and gliding back to her again in absolute silence, never breaking the passive look on his face. Even when he returns to see the little gaping o of Jyn’s mouth and for a moment desperately wants to give in to her suggestion of going straight back to Echo Base and kissing it off of her. He now takes a turn getting close to her, lowering his mouth to her earlobe. “And _I_ think you’re stalling.”

Her replying grin gets even sharper than the last. “Is it working?”

“No,” he replies bluntly, skating backwards away from her and crossing his arms expectantly. 

There’s a beat before she sighs and finally does actually begin to skate. It’s not much, just her gliding in a straight line until she naturally just sort of stops, but it’s entertaining for him to watch the actual concentration she’s putting into the effort. He’d even chance to call the scrunching of her facial features cute.

“When does this start getting enjoyable, exactly?” Jyn grumbles, lazily gliding forward again, all of a sudden bored due to her perceived mastery of the activity.

“When you actually start skating.” He demonstrates then, starting with her glide and morphing it into the exchanging of legs and feet moving him forward in a practiced motion.

She huffs, but attempts to replicate him all the same. It’s a stumbling effort—to the point that he worries for a moment that she’s actually hurt herself—but she simply grumbles something that sounds suspiciously like a Corellian curse word she must have picked up from Solo before getting back onto her feet and trying again.

It’s within these practice stops and starts, these slow attempts that get her putting one foot in front of the other and stopping without falling, that he notices how graceful she is. 

Jyn Erso, _graceful_ , of all things. 

Of course he’d noticed it in a fight. There was a violent, calm efficiency to the way she could bowl down a herd of stormtroopers with just her truncheons or her fists. It was actually one of the first things he really admired in her. On Jedha she’d been able to strike before he could even get his blaster aimed. Triumphant and covered in blood and ash is one of the many ways he knows her best.

Maybe graceful is the wrong word. She isn’t exactly steady on the blades. Certainly not asconfident and practiced as Cassian himself probably looks.

Steady. That’s probably the better term. It takes balance, athleticism, and strength to use skates. Determination to possibly fall down into the ice and have to get back up again. 

She has all of those things and the nerve to grin at him and literally skate circles around him as if she’d not just learned how to go in a straight line five minutes before.

“I see you’re finally having some fun,” he remarks, feeling his lips bloom into a small smile.

“Saw did always say I was a much better as a teacher than I ever was as a student.” The comment shades her smile just enough that he notices, but she shakes it off quickly. He decides to leave it be for the moment. If she wants to open up to him more about Saw than she already has, she’ll do so in her own time.

“Must be why they keep assigning you to train the new recruits.” He grabs her hand loosely, tangling their gloved fingers together and pulling her along to circle the frozen lake with him.

“There are just so _many_ of them ever since Skywalker destroyed the Death Star,” she comments. “I think Command just wants me to break their spirits and figure out who’s the most qualified for field work based on who cries the least.”

“You make them cry?” At this he really does smile, only partially disbelieving. It’s not like the Partisans were known for being personable, even to their own people.

“Only on occasion,” Jyn hedges, tucking a strand of hair back into her hood. “Mostly the data analysts in basic training. They cherrypick the slicers that can do the work without completely getting their asses kicked.”

“I need to start attending more of your training sessions,” he decides, actually meaning it. Not that he wants potential soldiers to be scared of their training officer, but he imagines Jyn has a reason to push her students so hard and he’s curious to know exactly what she’s doing with them.

She gives a soft hum, allowing silence to fill the moment. The only sounds are the clinking of their skates against the ice and the wind picking up against the trees surrounding them.

“Why did you want to show me this?” she asks, letting go of his hand and coming to a stop close to the edge of the lake. 

He stops himself as well, shrugging. “I told you, I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

She shakes her head, grabbing his hand again and squeezing lightly. “No, but why _this_? Why skating? _”_

He shrugs again, but this time he feels warmth spread through his layers of clothing. They’re trying to be more open together. They’re a team. He wants to tell her this. 

“I don’t talk about my life before the rebellion much. About Fest. Mostly because it’s something I don’t always want to think about. But skating…” Cassian allows himself a moment, trying to compose the words. “It was something I grew up doing. Fest is a part of me, just like the rebellion is. Just like you are. I—It’s something you didn’t know about me, and I just wanted to share it with you. Because you’re an important part of me too.” He chuckles. “Even if it means we’re in the middle of a galactic war farking _ice skating_.”

She smiles at him softly. Her lips are chapped from the cold, and he thinks if her grin gets any wider they’ll split open. Even with her face a splotchy red from the temperature, he thinks might never tire of that look. What he’s said—and he doesn’t even really know _what_ he’s saying half the time around her—made her happy. Content. Pleased. He wants to record this look on a holo and play it every time he’s away from base. Honestly, he might.

In the furtherance of that goal, he wraps his arms around her and etches his face into a sly grin. “Also, I figured something involving sharp blades would be at least inviting, considering it’s you.”

At that she makes a noise—something between a shriek and a growl—and tumbles them backwards, slamming his back into a hefty pile of snow and taking her with him.

He waits for the air to return to his lungs, but it never fully comes. When he opens his eyes with a soft grunt, he finds it’s because Jyn is straddling him with a predatory grin.

He wheezes out a puff of a laugh. “Are you going to show me how you make the trainees cry?“

She rolls her eyes and muffles his words by burying her hands in the hood of his coat and pressing her lips against his. He smirks into her kiss and feels her own smile when their teeth bump. 

She rubs a gloved finger against his jawline back and forth, warming it with the friction. He returns the favor by cupping the back of her neck and pulling her closer against him.

It’s a contrasting kiss. The warmth of their faces and breaths tangling together is still within the biting air of Hoth. The moment he even considers the thought— _more_ —he remembers that they’re lying in a pile of snow on a planet where darkness and cold can return without warning.

Jyn breaks away from him, and he sees the light fall of snowflakes dusting the fur hood of her coat. “What is it?”

He moves his gaze to the flakes he can now feel melting gently against his cheeks. “We should probably start heading back to base. This weather won’t stay for much longer.”

“Yeah,” she admits with a frown, beginning to rise from her place against him. He pulls her back with a short tug of her thighs tighter against him, leaning up to meet her face.

“I think you were right earlier.” He kisses her again, this time a little rougher, trying to pour how much all of this means to him into the simple expression of intimacy. “This was definitely all a ploy to get you back to our bed.”

She laughs again—this time so hard her head falls back a bit—the sound loud and full of mirth. Jyn wraps her arms around his neck tightly and presses their foreheads together.

“I think that can be arranged.”

**Author's Note:**

> There’s an unwritten bonus scene where Jyn bursts into their room like two weeks later and tells Cassian about how she was on a mission and ended up utilizing her skate attachments in combat. (Either by being able to skate and maneuver around an enemy, or, well…using the blades as blades.)
> 
> Thanks for reading! This prompt was so much fun to write, and I loved coming back to Jyn and Cassian after recently playing in the Star Wars: Rebels sandbox for so long.
> 
> As always, kudos, comments, and bookmarks are appreciated, and you can also [find me on tumblr](http://www.imgoingtocrash.tumblr.com) if you're looking to chat.


End file.
